Monday, September 6, 2010

MFW Adventures: Week 3 in pictures

Week 3, and still in love with Adventures in My Father's World curriculum. This week:

Bible: We continued to study about Jesus and how He came to save us from our sins. We talked about living like Jesus would live. We made a WWJD bookmark (Carli had never heard of WWJD) and a Jesus sun catcher by melting crayons shavings between wax paper(Um, yeah, we're doing Carli's over again because Mommy and Carli didn't notice that some of the letters were backwards. To defend myself a little bit, I was on the other side of the desk looking at it upside down. I have no idea what Carli's excuse was...)

Math and Phonics: We continued working on our first of the year review, and while I know it wasn't that long ago that we studied some of this stuff, I can see how it builds Carli's confidence to work quickly through a lesson and easily handle stuff that wasn't so easy last year. For our "reader" we continued with The Big Balloon Race.

Science: Still learning about air. Here we are doing a simple experiment to show that air pushes.

Step 1: Fill a glass to the brim.
Step 2: Place a styrofoam plate over the top, making sure there are no gaps between the glass and the plate.
Step 3: Invert. Air pushes against the bottom of the plate to hold it in place.

Second Experiment: Collapsing Carton. Sucking air out of the carton causes the sides to collapse and blowing air in "makes them fat" (Carli's words).
Geography: Carli seems to have inherited Grandpa Asbury's loves for geography. She loves to look at atlases and the big maps on our walls. Here she is labeling the continents on a placemat I got from Target's $1 bin (last year?).
Poring over the Usborne Children's Atlas...
...while Olivia "labels" the continents with letters from her name....

(which she is doing constantly, it seems)
We get as much outdoor learning in as possible. All that vitamin D is good for our spirits.
Breaks to climb in trees bring smiles.

Madeline enjoys a drink break. (Thick-It is a wonder, by the way.)

Olivia wanted to make her own sandwich: Multi-grain bread, lunch meat, yogurt, cottage cheese. And she ate it all.
History: Jamestown! Pocahontas! Below, Carli shows a favorite book from the book basket. We also started Squanto: Friend of the Pilgrims, and backtracked to read Eric the Red which finally came into the library. Right now, most of our narration and copywork is coming from history, and Carli has been asking to do copywork (!!!), which is a real surprise for me. We're still striving for her "best work" but at least there's progress in the "want to."


Family Read-Alouds: We are still working through the Gospel of Matthew around our supper table. It was a bittersweet moment when we finished Strawberry Girl, and I'm continually met with "Just one more, Mom!" while indulging in Shel Silverstein's delightful poetry.

More sunshine: Carli found a hat to protect Maddy a bit and it made it's rounds...

3 comments:

Michel Le said...

Greetings! I've enjoyed reading about your homeschool experience so far! I was wondering why you decided homeschool was the best decision for your family. I am in the process of earning my teacher's certification and am interested in teaching at a school that operates very differently from our public schools (i.e. Waldorf, Montessori, etc). This desire has me interested in learning why parents do not enroll their children in our public school system.

Esther Asbury said...

Looks like you had another great week! I don't know about you, but I can't believe the change MFW has brought to our classroom this year! Hope you're enjoying it as much as we are.

Monica said...

We are loving MFW Adventures too this year. Looks like your family is having a great time too!
Monica